Those with central air conditioning systems will inevitably ask themselves this question: How can I cool the rooms of my home at different temperatures?
For example, someone who spends a lot of time in their bedroom might complain they’re too cold. Meanwhile, everyone else in the home feels fine.
A natural response to this might be to close the air register in that room. Although it seems counter-intuitive, this is actually a bad practice—closing the air register increases pressure in the air ducts and can cause damage.
Instead, what you’re looking for is called “zone control.” This is an HVAC practice of sectioning the home into separate parts, thereby giving you the ability to control the temperature differently. There are a couple of ways that you can go about achieving zone control.
Having a heating system is nothing new, even for residents of Southern California. However, if we look at the statistics, the odds are high that you’ve been using a furnace up to this point. While furnaces have certainly earned their reputation and are great choices for heating, we’d argue that heat pumps are better in our climate. It’s not difficult for heat pumps to achieve the same level of comfort with greater efficiency.
Nowadays, we are surrounded by “smart” technology. It’s rare to find someone without a smartphone; our televisions have their own app stores; there’s even a smart kettle, which is admittedly much more trouble than it’s worth. But the bottom line on all the smart stuff is this: you only need it if it makes sense for your needs.
For many homeowners, the idea of “indoor air quality” might be new to them. It’s surprising to find out that your home’s indoor quality can be several times worse than the outdoors. But after learning that, what are you supposed to do now?
In Southern California, there’s really no wrong time to have your heater serviced. If you lived in Vermont, sure, we would suggest having that done before the worst of winter takes hold. But with our weather, we can get away with having to service our furnace in the middle of the cold season.
Depending on what kind of system we’re looking at, a heating system can last between ten and twenty years. Partway through that time, your eye might catch some new systems with better features, higher efficiency, or newer technology.
Your furnace isn’t acting quite the way it should. Luckily, you’ve found a video online that seems to describe the problem perfectly (the furnace in the video isn’t the same model as yours, but it’s close enough, right?). All you need now is a pair of gloves, some goggles, a welding torch…
Gas furnaces utilize the burning of gas, and that can bring a slew of problems: carbon monoxide leaks, gas leaks, house fires…
If you’ve been using your furnace since the beginning of fall and still haven’t had a maintenance check, you might be thinking that you’re off the hook. We don’t blame you—if you’ve already made it to winter, why not just take your chances and see if you can make it through to spring?